Transcultural nursing in the community

A. The meaning of culture

Culture refers to the beliefs, values, and behavior that are by members of a society and provide
a design or “ map” for living. It is culture that tells people what is acceptable or unacceptaple in
a given situation. It is culture that dictates what to do, say, or believe. Culture is learned. As
children grow up, they learn from their parent and others around them how to interpret the
world. In turn, these assimilated beliefs and values prescribe desired bahavior.

Anthropology describe culture as the acquired knowledge that people use to generate behavior
and interprent experience ( spradley & McCurdy, 2000 ). This knowledge is more than simply
custom or ritual; I is a way of organizing and thinking about life. It gives people a sense of
security about their behavior, without having to consciously think about it, they know how to
act. Culture also provides the underlying values and beliefs on which people’s behavior is based.
For example, culture determines the value placed or achievement, independence, work, and
leisure. It forms the basis for the definitions of male and female roles. It influences a person’s
response to authority figures, dictates religious beliefs and practices, and shapes child-rearing.
Acording to giger and davidhizar ( 2002, p. 80 0, “culture is a patterned behavioural response
that develops over time as a result of imprinting the mind through social and religious structures
and intelletual and artistic manifestations”.

Every community and social or ethnic group has its own culture. Furthermore, all of the
individual members believe and act based on the what they have learned within that spesific
culture. As anthropologist Edward Hall (1959) said a halfcentury ago, culture controls our lives.
Even the smallest elements of everyday living are influenced by culture. For instance, culture
determines the proper distance to stand from another person while talking. A comportable
talking distance for americansis at least 2.5 feat, whereas latin americans prefer a shorter
distance, often only 18 inches, for dialogue. Culture also influences one’s perception of time. In
american culture, when someone makes an appoinment, he or she expects the other person to
be on time or not more than a few minutes late; to keep a person waiting (or to be kept waiting)
for 45 minutes or 1 hour is insulting and intorelable. Yet Asians, have a much more flexible
response to time; their members think nothing of waiting or keeping someone else waiting for
an hour or two. Culture is the knowledge peolple use to design their own actions and, in turn, to
interpret others’ behavior (Spradley & Mccurdy, 2000).
B. Culture Diversity

Race refers to biologically designated groups of people whose distinguishing features, such as
skin color, are inherited; examples include asian, black, and white. An ethnic group is a
collection of people who have common origins and a shared culture and identiy; they may share
a common geographic origin, race, language, religion, traditions, values, and food preferences
(Spector, 2000). A person’s ethnicity is that group of qualities that mark his or her association
with a particular ethnic group. When a variety of racia ethnic groups join a common, larger
group, cultural diversity occurs. Cultural diversity (also called cultural plulity) means that a
variety of cultural patterns coexist within designeted geographic area. Cultural diversity occurs
not only between countries or continents, but also within many countries, including the united
states (Spactor, 2000). However, the term culture, used alone, has no single definition. We have
definit it for use in this book at the beginning of this section. Others have described culture as
meaning the to socially inherited characteristic of a group, comprising everything that one
generation can tell, convey, or hand own to tha next. Culture has also been described as ”the
that each of us carries around for a lifetime” (Spector, 2000, p. 78).

Immigration patterns over the years have contributed to ignificant cultural diversity in the
united states. Early setlers came primarily from european countries through the 800s, peaking in
numbers just after the turn of the country, with almost 9 million immigrants admitted in the first
decade of the 20th century. During much of that time, especially during the late 1600s through
the early 1800s, african slaves were brought to the united states against their will, mostly to
southern states; where they were sold to plantation owners as laborers. Immigration stayed
high during the early 1900s, and then dropped sharply from 1930 to 1950. Immigration from
non-european regions such as Asia and south america then steadily increased.